Remembering the Past, Thinking of the Future
by FleurSuoh
Summary: The beginning of the summer before Harry Potter's fifth year at Hogwarts finds Sirius Black to be depressed with all the bad that has happened in his life. Remus Lupin reads something that might make Sirius happy. A walk down memory lane thinking about someone important to them from Hogwarts. References Article 3 in my "Magical Creatures Not Widely Known" series. Contains an OC


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am not J.K. Rowling. The only characters that are mine are Selena Lovegood and Artemis Nyx Lovegood.

* * *

**Remembering the Past, Thinking of the Future**

One-Shot

* * *

Remus Lupin arrives outside of Grimmauld Place with a light, small grin on his face and a slight skip in his step. Walking towards the door of number twelve Grimmauld Place that appeared seemingly out of nowhere, he shakes his head with a light chuckle thinking of something he had read in passing earlier that day. His visit to the worn down residence had been inspired by this interesting information he accidentally came across. Remus decided that he would pass the humorous news onto one of his old friends that was still alive.

Stopping at the front door, Remus tapped it to allow himself into the residence that seemed closer to complete ruin than the worn down exterior of the building. Closing the door behind him, Remus took in the view of the nearly uninhabitable home as he made his way down the hallways, taking extreme care to make no noise while passing long, worn curtains that were pulled together on one of the walls. Remus greatly wanted to avoid awakening the horrid portrait of his good friend's insane and unbearable mother.

Continuing on his way through the house, Remus arrived at the doorway to the kitchen where he leaned in to find the person he came to see, his best friend Sirius Black. Sirius was seated at the kitchen table with a bottle of amber liquid next to him, a glass of ice in his hand, (which surely, Remus believed, had once too been filled with the amber liquid) and staring into the fire while lost in thought. Remus was becoming familiar with this scene for many times in the past week and a half Remus has found Sirius like this when he arrived. One fault to Remus' friend Sirius was that he shouldered the blame for things that went on around him. Four days ago, when Remus came to spend the evening with Sirius, he learned through Sirius' drunken ramblings that he thought he was to blame for everything. James and Lily's death, his brother becoming a death eater only to die while still very young, the happiness Harry could have had if he hadn't convinced James and Lily to have Peter be their secret keeper, and erasing the chance Harry could have had to live in a loving home if they hadn't kept the switch a secret from Dumbledore and if he hadn't chased after Wormtail for revenge.

It was because of this insight Remus was introduced to that he was determined to bring some joy to his despairing friend. Pulling out the chair to Sirius' left, Remus sat down and reached into his inner cloak pocket, brought out a colorful magazine and placed said magazine in front of his silent friend. Sirius glanced down at the cover then back at Remus. After a few moments of silence Sirius asked, "Of all the things to bring to my attention, you go for a magazine..." The two friends stare at each other momentarily before Sirius continues, "Why?"

Remus cleared his throat slightly before asking, "Sirius do you remember Selena Lovegood from our time at Hogwarts?" From the flash of fondness that Remus saw in Sirius' eyes, he knew his friend did. It would be difficult to forget little Selena Lovegood, a pureblooded Ravenclaw in the year below them. The surrogate younger sister to the Marauders, (even though she already had an older brother several years ahead of her at Hogwarts) who attached herself to them under the pretense that she noticed that James was swarmed by and infestation of Wrackspurts, especially when Lily Evans was nearby. She claimed to be worried that they would swarm the rest of us as well if she was not there to try and ward them off and to cure James' symptoms from prolonged exposure to them and incite them to depart from James quickly so as to prevent any irreversible damage coming to him. Her persona and behaviors were what endeared her to them, allowing them to maintain a friendship together even though she was a year younger and in another house.

To the astonishment of James and Sirius, Selena Lovegood had also made her way into the heart of one Lily Evans, who at the time was immensely annoyed by James' attempts at gaining her attention. Lily took the young Ravenclaw under her wing and was the reason why Selena began to stand up for herself. Apparently the other girls in Ravenclaw found her manners strange instead of endearing and so they had taken to whispering about her odd quirks behind her back, especially when they knew she could hear them, they referred to her as "Loopy Lovegood" and had, apparently for a while, taken to hiding some of her things. She had never told us what had been going on and we would not have known because she always seemed so happy around us. Lily, who hated to see anyone be picked on, had come across some first year Ravenclaw girls in one of the bathrooms whispering about how "Loopy Lovegood would never find her sketchbook up here." Apparently they had stolen a sketchbook she drew magical creatures in and were planning on hiding it on the upper ledge of a window in the bathroom. Lily, who had been entering the bathroom at the time, overheard them while they pondered how she would react to her sketchbook being gone became defensive of Selena. Lily hardly knew Selena at that time, only knowing her to be the little blond haired, blue eyed Ravenclaw that tagged along with Black, Lupin, Pettegrew, and "That arrogant toe-rag" and often spent time with them in the Gryffindor common room.

Lily had lashed out at them, asking how they could treat a fellow first year and housemate the way they did. She made them give Selena her sketchbook back and apologize for the way they treated her. It turns out they had also hidden some of her other belongings: a porcelain doll, a stuffed rabbit, her winter cloak, her photo album and her books titled _The Lord of the Rings_. She got those items back the first day of the winter holidays, however, the process of getting those items started the day before.

The ground had been covered with fresh snow and the group of five had walked down to sit by the lake to enjoy the peacefulness after the last classes before the holidays ended. After being outside for twenty minutes, Selena had begun shivering, and James had realized that she wasn't wearing her winter cloak. When asked about why she wasn't wearing it, while Sirius took it upon himself to share the warmth of his cloak with her, she remained quiet for a few moments with her eyes focused on the fidgeting hands in her lap before weakly whispering out that her winter cloak was missing. (Her actual words had been that she couldn't remember where she put her cloak.) The group made their way up to the castle to confront Selena's housemates and ask them, nicely, to return all the belongings they took from her.

What really had happened was that after hearing her response, James and Sirius stood up, passed Selena off to share a cloak with Remus, and stormed back to the castle, James leading the way with Sirius at his right, while Peter, Remus, and Selena quickly followed after them. Once inside, James and Sirius thundered through the hallways with purpose: to make Selena's roommates return her belongings and make them wish they had never decided to pick on Selena Lovegood, the surrogate younger sister of the boys. Before they could go too far with their search through the castle, Selena broke away from Remus' side and attached herself to James' right arm and Sirius' left arm pleading with them not to go after her roommates. "You don't even know that they took my cloak anyway, I could have left it somewhere about the castle!" With a hard voice James responded without looking at her, "If you had left it somewhere around the castle it would have been returned to you. Any decent person would, heck! Probably even Snivellus would give you your winter cloak back." Not that many people had been in the hallway, in fact, it had been completely deserted since nearly all the students were enjoying their time outside in the snow.

Around the time that Selena attached herself to James and Sirius, Lily Evans and Severus Snape had made their way into the hallway to enjoy the outdoors together. After hearing what James said to Selena, Lily made her way over, Severus trailing cautiously along behind her as he made his way closer to his school enemies. Lily touched Selena's shoulder, "Selena, Potter's right (for once). Any decent person would return someone's cloak if it was found in the castle. Since no one has come to return it to you then they must be hiding it from you." Lily paused a moment before continuing, "You need to stand up to them Selena. They are taking your things and by not saying anything to them they will just get worse with time. What if they end up taking something from you like your homework or something you really value and end up breaking it? If you are too scared to tell them to stop alone then allow us to help you. They took your warm cloak so you can't find it, with the current temperature around this time you could get really sick if you aren't dressed properly." "I don't think they mean it, trying to be mean. They just don't really understand me..." "If they are trying to become your friend, the worst thing for them to do is to steal from you." After a few minutes of silence, Selena whispered her agreement to stand up for herself.

In her own way, Selena stood up for herself. Before the confrontation she expressed her nervousness to the Marauders. In turn, Sirius told her, "Just try to take on the appearance and pretend to be Evans when she is shouting at James here." Still be herself while acting like Lily. Squaring her shoulders and raising her chin, she began to walk briskly towards the courtyard where her roommates were enjoying the snow outdoors. As she began to make her way toward them she figured she would have a better effect if she approached them with the combination of Lily and an enraged veela. Her long blond hair fanned out behind her as she made her way toward them with a confidence she never knew she had. Stopping before them and keeping her head held high she said, "Return my belongings to me at once please, otherwise I will make sure that your beds will have a great nargle infestation and I'll be sure to allow the Hieropes to tie you to the bed by your hair." After a few minutes of silence Selena concluded by saying, "I'll give you until seven o'clock to give me back all of my things. Goodbye." She then turned on her heel and headed back in the direction where the Marauders, Lily and Severus were standing with a bright smile on her face.

Snapping out of memories from the past, Remus says to Sirius, "It just so happens that little Selena has a daughter about Harry's age." Sirius' eyes light up, "What is she like?" "I suppose you could say that she is like Selena used to be, a Ravenclaw, as expected, and she apparently writes articles for Selena's brother's magazine... If I were you, I would read page three."

A few moments passed in silence as Sirius read the article. Sirius looked up at Remus with a light in his eyes, "'Led to believe that they are repelled by greasy hair'?" A smirk forms on Sirius' face, making him look younger than he had for the past several years, "'Multiple sources have claimed that one professor of potions, who possesses greasy hair, has never appeared to be affected by the ever mischievous Rambling Nervoflies'... I wish I could see the look on Snivellus' face if he were to read this." Raising his glass and pouring one for Remus, he announced with enthusiasm, "To Artemis Nyx Lovegood! May you continue to take jabs at Snivellus forever!"

Needless to say, Sirius Black was much happier for the next few days and could be found quoting what he had read in the article. His excitement increased when he found out that the Weasleys would be coming to stay at Grimmauld Place and that, after spending some time with the Dursleys, to keep the blood wards going, Harry would be joining him as well. The only thing that could probably make him happier would be to see Selena again because with his sister there, the world seemed much brighter.

* * *

I hope you all enjoyed this one-shot. It came to me while I was typing up Article 3 of my Magical Creatures series. The parts talking about Snape I thought would be entertaining to Sirius and so with not wanting to study after taking an organic chemistry exam this morning I decided to get some writing in and this was the result!

I actually have some ideas for another one-shot that would somewhat go along with this one but unless the writing comes to me it might not come up. So we shall all be surprised if another one does come out.

Reviews would be much appreciated; I'd like to know what you thought.

KyokoNyx aka FleurSuoh


End file.
